


Indistinguishable from Magic: "The Witchfinders"

by PlaidAdder



Series: Doctor Who Meta [15]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s11e08 The Witchfinders, Gen, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: Many years ago I figured out that the only real difference between fantasy and science fiction lies in the way each genre explains the miraculous. Fantasy uses magic; science fiction uses technology. Fantasy gives us spirits, elves, and other magical beings; science fiction gives us aliens. And so on. The Doctor nods in this direction by quoting Arthur C. Clarke in her exit line to King James: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Series: Doctor Who Meta [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/68261
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Indistinguishable from Magic: "The Witchfinders"

  


I finally saw “Witchfinders.” I was thoroughly entertained by it, and impressed by the way it delivers real horror and creepiness via a premise that is definitely not novel. This is also, as many commentators have already pointed out, the first episode in which the fact that Thirteen is a woman really matters; I appreciate the way they dealt with that, though it’s not to me the most interesting part of the episode. I’m more interested in the ways in which this episode reminded me of one of my favorite season 10 episodes, “The Eaters of Light,” in which a bit of local folk history turns out to be the remnant of a story about alien invasion. In getting to the bottom of an outbreak of witch-hunting in Bilehurst Cragg, the Doctor and Team Tardis, obviously, debunk the Christian concept of witchcraft as Satan’s work. But at the same time, it low-key stands up for the value of folk medicine, folk history, and folk belief. 

Many years ago I figured out that the only real difference between fantasy and science fiction lies in the way each genre explains the miraculous. Fantasy uses magic; science fiction uses technology. Fantasy gives us spirits, elves, and other magical beings; science fiction gives us aliens. And so on. The Doctor nods in this direction by quoting Arthur C. Clarke in her exit line to King James: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

“Witchfinders” takes us back to a time when people found magic a lot more credible than science as an explanation for the bizarre and unknown; and, of course, this episode reminds us that this was a problem. I think, personally, that the whole ‘bullying’ analogy worked out through Yaz’s backstory didn’t really work; there wasn’t enough time dedicated to developing it, and if you want the whole _Crucible_ vibe you really need to get the villagers en masse into it instead of focusing as much as this episode does on Becka and King James. However, the episode gives us many other beauties, chief among them Alan Cumming’s performance as the infuriating yet fascinating King James. He’s so infuriating, and yet just charming enough that you can’t hate him, even in that first scene with the Doctor. Whether or not it was intentional, I also enjoyed the X-Filesiness of it all (the killer mud thing reminds me of the plot of “Schizogeny”). And, for the second time in a row, I found Graham’s characterization to be one of the highlights. “It’s…a very flat team structure,” he says, awkwardly, after realizing that for practical purposes he needs to embrace his role as Witchfinder General. But what Graham really brings to the table is his knowledge of local history, and it’s nice to see him taking on a leadership role without being overbearing about it. This episode doesn’t do as much with Ryan and Yaz, though watching Yaz go to work on the mud tendril with a shovel is pretty cool.

The location is by turns beautiful and menacing, and as hard as it evidently was on the cast, shooting most of this episode outdoors was definitely the right call. Something in us, despite all the more modern horrors we have to deal with, still fears the woods at night, and like vintage X-Files, this episode did a good job of exploiting that.

But perhaps my favorite thing about it is the tree. Though it strains credulity to imagine that Becca cut that thing down all by herself with her ax–all through this episode I kept wondering where her servants were; maybe she had them all executed as witches–there is something satisfying about the way the alien plot confirms the connection between trees and magic. The aliens are imprisoned in that tree the same way Sycorax imprisoned Ariel in a cloven pine; and as gullible and easily persuaded as the villagers are re the works of Satan, the idea that there’s something evil locked inside that tree has been recorded in the name of the village and still survives in some diluted way in popular memory. Similarly, while the kind of witches that King James is hunting don’t exist any more than Satan does, Willa’s grandmother is carrying on a healing tradition which is understood as magical but is also the only way that women, in that time and place, were allowed to practice medicine. So in a way, this whole episode is about one woman Doctor trying to save another. 

So that’s one thing I really appreciate about this episode: instead of assuming, Connecticut-Yankee-In-King-Arthur’s-Court-style, that these seventeenth-century villagers were just naturally dumber and more gullible than us moderns, it suggests that this whole calamity started because Becka thought she was too modern to have to care about this tree on her land. Probably anyone in that village could have told her that cutting it down was a bad idea. Probably people did. Who knows, maybe her servants quit after she did it because they didn’t want to be around for the aftermath. But she thought that because she owned the deed she could control the land and everything on and under it; and it turns out she was wrong. 

  * 



End file.
